In our recent client spotlight we hi-lighted a site that uses expandable sidebar menu’s to link to their listings. That effect is created using a WordPress Plugin called J Shortcodes.
Between a combination of the dsIDXpress link-structure and J Shortcodes, you can create the same effect for your own real estate blog.
Here’s how…
Installing Your Widget:
First thing you’ll want to do is add a new text widget to the place in your sidebar where you’d like your new expandable menu’s to appear. In the case of MattPernice.com it looks like he decided to title his widget “Quick MLS Search.”
Once you’ve given your widget a title, add the following html into the text area of your widget:
[jaccordion size=”xsmall” theme=”cupertino” active=”0″]
By Price – Irvine::
<a href=”http://www.mywpplayground.com/idx/city/irvine/?idx-q-PriceMin=200000&idx-q-PriceMax=300000″>$200,000 – $300,000</a>
[jacc/]
By Price – Alisso Viejo::
<a href=”http://www.mywpplayground.com/idx/city/alisso-viejo/?idx-q-PriceMin=200000&idx-q-PriceMax=300000″>$200,000 – $300,000</a>
[/jaccordion]
Replace “mywpplayground.com” with your own site’s domain where you have dsIDXpress installed and change the price values for as many price areas as you’d like to link to. You’ll have to insert links for your various price ranges of course, just do so in a new line.
Hit publish, and you’re all set to go with your new accordion style navigation menus!
If you have any questions or run into any problems, just let me know in the comments and I”ll help you out. And if you happen to install this on your own blog, link to it for the rest of us to see!
It’s too bad this plug-in conflicts with the Dynamic Content Gallery I use with the Genesis Framework on the Child Theme Platinum. Will have to look into it more…
I deactivated the Dynamic Content Gallery plug in and created an accordion search widget and noticed it ended up pulling the posts we had created with the permalinks of the town name thus no MLS data pulled from the IDX feed. I deleted the widget.
Huh, did you notice any other conflicts Jay? I do hate having a ton of javascript on my site… but… I’m going to give this plugin a try!!
Hey Jay, I’m not sure if you are still following this post or not… BUT, I tested 5 different plugins this morning (including J Shortcodes). A lot of junk out there… but I think I found a gem!!
JQuery Accordion Menu Widget
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jquery-vertical-accordion-menu/
Works great. Is simpler to use than J Shortcodes and unlike the majority of these plugins I had NO conflicts. Its awesome.
Good Luck!!
Thanks Seth, I will check it out again.
Hi, Ricardo. On my site http://www.silverado-property.com the
jaccordion looks fine in Chrome but not in IE 9. Any ideas? Thank you
Works fine in Firefox.
Hi Ricardo,
Today i come across your plugin while searching for a accordian style side bar mene for my pages. my site is http://www.aboutdehradun.com.I have installed the plugin but unable to proceed further. You said the html to be inserted into the text widget. how can i do it for my pages.
Thanks in advance.